The Rolling Barrage PTSD Foundation / The Rolling Barrage website continues to progress in its development of bringing relevant information that pertains to the annual coast to coast ride to raise awareness of PTSD but also other mental health and wellness issues.
At the time of writing this blog post we are 78 days from kick stands up in Newfoundland for The Rolling Barrage VII 2023 ride. I am excited about this year and I really hope, along with the Board of Directors, Provincial Representatives and Volunteers, that you, as our riders, supporters and sponsors, are just as excited too.
Also at this time, we have several riders from The Rolling Barrage rank and file about to participate in The Run for the Wall for 2023. Two from the Board of Directors are participating, The Rolling Barrage Founder, Scott Casey and James Gordon, the Chief of Operations for The Rolling Barrage. When they pass on information, pictures and maybe even the odd video, we’ll get this up on our website and social media for all to see.
Website Updates
Right from the beginning, when I was selected by the Board of Directors as the CEO of The Rolling Barrage PTSD Foundation / The Rolling Barrage, I knew the website needed major work. There had to be a significant shift in how the organization as a whole presented itself to the public, sponsors, supporters and ridership. I am no web design expert by any means, but I knew there had to be a shift in the design and structure. Hence what you see today. I know it is not perfect, but you can’t beat the cost. We pay essentially our hosting fees, maintenance and backup services. The design element which can run into thousands of dollars is better served for our mission. So I take the time to learn and develop, just like on the website.
With that, I recognized that the way I showed links in the main website reflected the theme of the website being red. This can be confusing, what’s a title, sub-title or link. Well, all links are now blue and bold. There may be some still lingering around, but I will find them and correct that. The blogs will remain with links in red for the time being until I can figure that out.
I added a small The Rolling Barrage – Image Gallery to the website. It’s nothing major. In fact, that is something in my “to do” list to further develop.
I also spent the significant time with the help of an add-on to my browser called ProWritingAid. It helps with some grammatical efforts, but mainly for spelling. I can’t believe how many times across the website I spelled things wrong.
Generally speaking, I also do all the Blogs as well and then flip them to our Facebook page. Few reasons for this. One is we need to have relevant content on the website and the promotion of visitors to it. This, in turn, drives in some ways our Registration for the ride and sales of our Merchandise. But it also clearly puts on record who we have as Sponsors and Who We Help in turn from proceeds. We have helped a lot of organizations and people over the years and while we did post on Facebook, for example, it would then get buried, eventually.
Our Sponsors, we didn’t promote them well. I don’t think any of them are really expecting a massive increase in their business operations because of how we promote them, but I have been told they are very appreciative of the effort put forth to recognize them for being a sponsor.
Mobile Devices
This is huge. Nearly 50% of the users who engage in this website and on our Social Media do so from a mobile device, be it a smart phone or tablet. I knew this would be a factor in the overall design, which is why I break out individual pages into blocks of information, such as a graphic or text. This is, so it fits easier for mobile devices. It may not be entirely perfect but consider all the different operating systems, Android, Apple IOS, Windows, Linux. Break it down to browsers, Chrome, Firefox, Windows Explorer, Edge, Opera, Brave, and Safari.
Now add device sizes. On a desktop, monitor size is anything goes. Laptops, from 10′ to 17″. Phones have multiple sizes and tablets have multiple sizes. With all that said, it is important to trim the size of images. So I am consistently trying to balance.
In closing, I would just like to say to everyone thank you for your patience. The website will get better over time just as I will get better at working within it.
Sincerely,
Christian ~ CEO, The Rolling Barrage PTSD Foundation / The Rolling Barrage